Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Chapters Seven-Nine: In Which Hard-On is At Least a Cultured Asshole

THESE CHAPTER SYNOPSES ARE BASED ON THE PRINT BOOK PUBLISHED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER, NOT THE WATTPAD VERSION.

CHAPTER 7

Last time, we were left off wondering just how in the world Tessa is going to survive her first college party. Probably with a lack of poise and overall being a bitch, as always.

Within her first steps of heading into the house with her new buddies, Tessa's handed a drink from a random person. Luckily, she hasn't taken her stupid pill quite yet, so she puts the drink down and continues into the party. The group stops in front of a couch loaded with people, and Tessa remembers that she's a total bitch:

"I assume they are friends with Steph, given their appearance."

Tattooed people don't have a special club they all belong to, and people with tattoos aren't automatically BFF's with other tattooed people.

Hard-On is there too, as well as a very nice, hot boy who introduces himself as Zed. Like, Zedd? Like another musical person besides 1D. Get out.

The guy gives her a once-over, and she calls her own dress "bulky". Was she not defending it to Steph earlier? I get the feeling this girl is an unreliable narrator. But maybe I'm just picking at straws here.

Zedd asks her about her major, and Tessa "proudly" tells him that she's an English major, and Hard-On actually gives an appropriate response:

"Hardin snorts but I ignore him."

I mean, while I hate the people that actually snort when you tell them you're an English major, I'm not sure Anastasia Steele Tessa deserves the title.

Zedd thinks it's awesome though! He explains,

"'I'm into flowers.' Zed laughs and I return one. Flowers? What does that even mean?"

Maybe he means deflowering? Because you're a virgin? Because he would know that? Maybe it's because you reek of virginity.

I don't think Tessa realizes that he just seriously burned her, as if being into flowers uses the same amount of intellect as being an English major. What do you major in, Zedd; being an ass? You and Hard-On must have all your classes together.

But if Tessa is an English major, then I guess I can see where they're coming from...

The only other girl in the group calls Tessa Little Miss Priss, because of course every new girl that we meet from now on is going to be a bitch. This girl is also sitting the closest to Hard-On, so it makes sense. Tessa is probably just jealous that she's brave enough to sport pink hair.

After denying that she's prissy, and announcing that she needs to get some air, she thinks to herself:

"I don't need to make any enemies when I don't have any friends to begin with.

'Do you want me to come with you?' Steph calls after me."

Well, it kind of seems like Steph is your friend. But you're too self-involved with your own stupid shit to realize this.

"I could be Skyping with Noah, whom I miss terribly."

"Whom I miss terribly"? Does this girl think she's in a Jane Austen novel? I guess, then, that Hard-On is a modern Mr. Wickham. And Golden Boy is a shoe-in for Mr. Collins.

Once outside, she texts with Golden Boy to make herself feel better, gets beer spilled on her frumpy dress by a drunken frat boy, and decides to go back inside and clean off. In doing so, she brilliantly decides to open every closed door to find a bathroom, trying "not to think about what people are doing in the rooms."

Is it wrong that I envisioned her stumbling into Christian's Red Room from FSoG? Is it also wrong that I hope Tessa gets caught in the cross-fire of the "BDSM" sex that Ana doesn't want and gets a swift whip-slash to the face?

Too much? It was too much.

So, of course, she opens a door upstairs (I sincerely doubt that there were NO bathrooms downstairs; what kind of frat house is this?) and finds,

"it's one in which Hard-On is lying across the bed while the pink-haired girl straddles his lap, her mouth covering his."

So, not only is the pink-haired girl a bitch, but also a slut.

And, of course, the first door that she opens and sees people hooking up in is one with Hard-On in it, because FAN FICTION.

CHAPTER 8

The first thing that comes out of the pink-haired girl's mouth is so snarky that snark itself becomes a verb:

"'Can I help you?' she snarks."

Okay, Patrick.

Tessa can't stop staring at the way this girl is straddling Hard-On, although she blames her feet specifically for being immobile, because, clearly, her feet are a separate entity from the rest of her body. I think they've joined the crazy train with her eyes that can't stop looking.

She gets a better look at Hard-On once he sits up, and his face is "flat." Now, Todd explains what this means within the same sentence, but I'm just imagining his face getting flattened cartoon-style by an eighteen-wheeler and I'm disturbingly giddy with the idea.

Tessa then assumes he's a total man-whore (which is very likely at this point), stutters out some words strung together, and finally states the obvious (at least, in her own head):

"This is so uncomfortable."

Then leave you pervert! Jesus.

Tessa is really good at cock-blocking. I guess it's because she's never had sex before? The pink-haired girl decides to ignore Tessa, which is really all she can do now after making it clear that Tessa's not welcome, and Tessa takes offense.

"These two seem to be a good match. Both tattooed, and both rude."

I can't believe you fucking rhymed it. I nearly threw the book again, but I was reading this half-asleep, so the energy to do so evaded me.

I just made up for it now. Another dent added to the bane of my existence. I'll be sure to take a picture at the end of these recaps to document the physical abuse this book has caused us to exert.

Also, if you're playing along to our drinking game, take two shots because she spoke badly about tattoos AND called them both rude.

In answer to Tessa telling them that she was just looking for a bathroom, pink-hair suggests logically that she go find a bathroom. She then rolls her eyes. Now, I have no problem with eye-rolling; I've been doing it for nearly every sentence of this book. But it says specifically before this that, not only did the pink-haired girl turn away to kiss Hard-On's neck, but Tessa also averted her eyes from the blasphemy happening before her, so there was no way Tess could've seen this girl roll her eyes. Another great example of editing. And writing.

Tessa FINALLY leaves, complains to herself how college isn't fun at all, and decides to clean off in the kitchen instead, which is what she should've done in the first place. But, of course, for the plot's sake, she needed to think even less of Hard-On and tattooed college girls in general by walking in on them.

Then, she drops this gem on us:

"The last thing I want to do is open another door and find drunken hormonal college students on top of one another. Again."

Another? Again? We get it.

But, seriously, I'm so done with Tessa's innocent act. You know what, take another shot just for kicks, because this chick is seriously getting on my nerves. The only part of this that doesn't describe Tessa in this moment is "drunken." All people her age are hormonal and she's obviously a college student, though she seems to wish she wasn't. Todd is making it pretty obvious that hooking up is on par with eating the forbidden fruit from Eden. I can't wait until this girl starts to fall for this guy that she's crucifying.

Nice Nate comes by as she fails to clean herself up with shitty paper towels (I mean, really, I'm surprised the frat house even had paper towels; the last frat house I went to had a single dirty dish towel), and when she asks how long these kinds of parties last, he answers:

"'All night...and half the day tomorrow.' He laughs and my mouth drops."

Ah, stereotypes, I really did miss you for just a second there.

And what's with this girl and dropping mouths? First her mom's, now hers. Her family must have some loose jaws... *wink wink*

Tessa freaks out about not being able to get back to her dorm. Nice Nate, being the nice guy that he is, offers her his car. Now, I'm actually shocked that Nice Nate bailed on being DD (we're told his eyes are "bloodshot," so while he could just be tired, he's more likely to be high), although it was never expressly said that he was DD. I just assumed because, you know, he was driving them all there. But that's also assuming that Todd sees these tattooed heathens as normal people, but, clearly, even Nice Nate isn't except from being portrayed as a total asshat at times.

Nice Nate tries to convince her that it would be totally fine if she took his car (which it would, she's just being impossible and irrational, as per usual), but she tells him it's fine, then goes into sulk-mode when the music gets turned up.

She is the great hater of fun.

CHAPTER 9

"Finally, after pointing around and yelling "Steph!" like ten times at Nate"

OMG like, ten, like, times, like? Like, no way!

They literally just had an entire conversation, but the moment the music turns up, she doesn't think that, maybe moving closer to him would let her ask him something simple, like, "Where's Steph?". It's like these tattooed heathens are a disease and she doesn't want to get too close or she might catch their rebellious tendencies. Or leave her with a "pure inattention to structure." And we wouldn't want that.

Nice Nate laughs at her inability to converse (TEAM NATE!) as she yells at him "Steph!" over and over, and then,

"His hand moves up into the air and he points into the next room."

It's LeviOsa, not LeviosA! Swish and flick!

That's just what I imagined Nice Nate doing as his hand "moves up into the air" and points. Please, just levitate this bitch right out of there. Actually, I have a better idea: avada kadavra!

Too soon?

But, apparently, these hand gestures do something for Tessa, because they make her think that he's a sweet guy, and she wonders why he hangs out with Hard-On. I'm wondering what it is about his hand gestures that make him so nice? Maybe he did cast a spell on her...

[Australian narrator's voice] And now we find the young virgin lamb unable to look away from the monkey's mating ritual, taking place in the main watering hole known as the dance floor. This ritual appears to the lamb as some sort of orgy, but the monkeys are simply interacting in their true environment. Let's watch.

"But they aren't just dancing; they're groping and grinding."

GROW. THE. FUCK. UP.

She thinks about how she NEVER danced that way with Noah, even though they've been dating for two years (seriously? Two years together and you never even danced that way? Did you not have school dances?), and then she remembers that she'd been texting the poor Golden Boy before the entire ordeal with Hard-On and pink-haired girl.

But we DO get to see a side of Golden Boy that we hadn't before when she sees her text messages from him:

"You there Tess?

Hello? You okay?

Tess? Should I call your mom? I'm getting worried."

Ah, I see, so Tessa's already in a controlling relationship. So when she eventually gets with Hard-On, she's getting an upgrade.

Still, she hurriedly dials Golden Boy, who doesn't pick up, but she texts him to let her know that she is in fact still alive in this crazy world of college life and he definitely shouldn't be calling her mom.

He needs to calm his shit.

The weird thing, though, is that she's not worried that it had probably only been ten minutes in between the time that she'd last texted him and he was already threatening to call her mom. No, she's more focused on how her mom will lose it if she thinks something happened to Tessa already.

All the controlling relationships.

She finally finds Steph, who's pretty drunk by now (she calls Tessa "roomie," and it's totally appropriate now; being drunk lets you skip some steps), and she realizes that Steph is about to throw up. Nice Nate brings Steph upstairs to a... Can you guess it?

"finding a bathroom quickly, of course."

First of all, of course he knows where a bathroom is. He's obviously been here before (I think he's part of the frat, but I'm not sure we've been told that yet), and, also, he's not a fucking idiot. Go figure. Nice and a brain.

Steph goes to throw up, and we find that Tessa can be...at least semi-decent.

"I look away but grab her red hair and gently hold it back away from her face."

Yeah, you know, I've never much believed in using commas either. They're just pesky little buggers getting in the way of such gorgeous, well-manicured prose.

I guess I can't be too mad at Tessa because at least she had the decency to hold Steph's hair while she threw up, but we're never told why she looks away. If Todd would've said it was because Tessa gets nauseous seeing other people's puke, then that at least would've made sense, but we're not given any such insight.

When Steph is all puked-out, Nice Nate leads them both to the room across the hall, and then he dashes off, telling Tessa he'll check on them later (which is admittedly kind of a dick thing to do), and Tessa considers what choices she's made in her life to get her here to this exact place.

"Sober, with a drunk girl beside me and a party raging all around, I feel like I've hit a new low."

Well, if we're really going to name who's at the new low here, maybe it's the actual drunk girl you're sitting next to. Stop feeling so bad for yourself, ya narcissistic idgit.

Also, you decided to be sober. It was probably a good choice considering your extremely high levels of virginal innocence, but stop complaining about something you could still do something about. Call Nice Nate back and tell him to bring a bottle of Fireball with him!

Looking around, she finds a bookcase against one of the walls and goes over to it to find Wuthering Heights calling to her, getting so

"lost in Emily Bronte's words that I don't even notice the change in light when the door opens."

This will become funny in a moment when there's a truly shocking revelation as to whose room it is. (I'll give you one guess. Your clue is: because fan fiction.).

"'Why the hell are you in my room?' an angry voice booms from behind me.

I know that accent by now.

Hard-On."

Oh, Hard-On, I missed you so!

Heathcliff is a total narcissistic asshat anyway, so that must be where Hard-On gets his wonderful manners and generally splendid temperament.

When she doesn't answer him (because she's ALWAYS at a loss for words around everyone), he asks again, and when she turns, this happens:

"I turn to see his long legs pulling him towards me and he snatches the book from my hand and tosses it back onto the shelf."

Please, tell me I'm not the only one who thought of this?

That run-on sentence was almost as long as his legs.

I just can't right now.

He doesn't even take care of the books on his shelves!

I. CAN'T.

...

After Tessa takes her time thinking it through, she realizes that Hard-On is part of the frat (because he wasn't such a dick already), and she finds it hard to hide her surprise that a tattooed douchebag could be in a frat. Oh, my dear, you have so much to learn.

Hard-On, for some odd reason, doesn't take kindly to her surprise, and he calls her Theresa again. She replies:

"'Stop calling me Theresa.' He has me cornered."

And we're supposed to like this guy? Seriously? Sounds a lot like FSoG when Christian...no, wait, it's like ALL of FSoG.

Hard-On is a dick some more, and Tessa has a sexual experience:

"'She can't stay in here," he says as I pass. When I turn around he has the small ring in his lip between his teeth. What made him decide to put a hole in his lip and eyebrow? That had to be painful...though the one piece does accent just how full and round his lips are."

Is the idea of Hard-On being in pain turning anyone else on? And not in actual BDSM pain kind of way, but the FSoG pain kind of way? No?

I'll just put this here as I imagine this is what Hard-On's round lips look like...

[for context: this is Jenna Marbles doing some crazy things to create the unrealistic Kylie Jenner lips. The entire video is HILARIOUS; look it up!]

So, Tessa, which is it? Either you hate the metal or you love it. Why don't you just admit that you think he's sexy and get it over with. We're all getting tired of your shit.

Hmm like Christian Grey never let any girl sleep in his bed before Anastasia Steele. What could possibly come of this?!

It's in the half-light of Hard-On's room that she's finally able to make out the shape of one of his tattoos. Apparently, it's a flower...

O-kaaaaaay.

But it's not all sunshine and rainbows; even his flower tattoo has a dark side. I must admit, though, that, if the book was written the way this section was written, I'd enjoy this book a hell of a lot more. It also alludes to the fact that he's kind of beautiful, but surrounded by darkness. Seriously, where has this passage been?

She suddenly feels "brave and annoyed," which I don't really understand. Does the fact that he has a flower tattoo make him less of an asshole? No.

Hard-On insults her by saying he's not her type, she silently says he's not hers, though finding that she's once again tongue-tied and at a loss for words. Then this randomness:

"The music through the wall is like an itching sensation."

Uh...heh?

Mother Theresa stands up for herself, and in doing so leaves Steph alone with Hard-On, which is SUCH a good idea.

"I hear Hardin's mocking, 'Good night, Theresa.'"

Whattadick.

Honestly, they deserve each other.

THE AFTER DRINKING GAME:

Shall we take shots for how many times she calls someone or something rude or boy from now on? I think I'll need to. And if it's rude boy... double shot. If she refers to tattoos in a bad light, take a shot as well. Let's all be drunk together!

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The truth is that we'd rather not tell you our names. We've read enough horror stories about authors going after people. The synopses of the After series will remain on here, and possibly on a Twitter account that one of us will create, which is separate from our own. We may change our minds on this, but for now anonymity sounds fantastic. We hope you enjoy!